This pumpkin had been sitting on our kitchen counter for about a month. Prior to this, it had sat in our friend's home for some indeterminate amount of time.
I partly cut it open to see if it was still good, and I partly cut it open to use in this recipe. I love all winter squash, and I had some other variety in the wings if the pumpkin turned out to be misleading me. The pumpkin, it seemed, was fine.
The pumpkin in question was specifically a sugar pumpkin, or sugar pie pumpkin. I spent time researching this when I first became the new owner of said pumpkin. I considered making all sorts of dishes with this pumpkin before we left for our Christmas holiday, but simply ran out of the time and energy to do so. Speaking of the Christmas holiday, Patrick and I spent three weeks in Southern California enjoying the lack of weather. There were a few days when the temperatures reached almost 90 degrees. I was in heaven.
We spent the day of Christmas both at my parents' house and also at his. We opted to take the train down to his parents' in order to avoid holiday crazies and a two hour drive. This also set up the scenario for our parents to meet when my folks came down to pick us up.
But back to Christmas. More specifically, back to the presents we got at Christmas.
For Christmas, I got a new digital camera from my parents. Patrick got the new Zelda game, Skyward Sword. From his parents we got some wonderful gloves and I got a scarf that I have already put to excellent use. Among these and other things, we also got some mesquite powder. Little was Patrick's mother aware that I have been mildly obsessed with this powder since I discovered gluten free food blogs. Specifically the blog Gluten Free For Good. Early on in my change to a gluten free life, I came across a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that called for mesquite powder and used duck eggs. At the time, we had procured some duck eggs from I don't remember where. None of them were used for baking that I recall, which is unfortunate as their yolks are much bigger and they have a richness that you can't get out of chicken eggs. I believe they were eaten on their own... not really advisable, I assure you. As we never again procured duck eggs, I also never got around to purchasing mesquite powder.
On Saturday I set out to toast my pumpkin seeds that I had scooped from the flesh of my pumpkin and rinsed the day before (See how awesome my new camera is?!). I used the recipe found here, which is the site of a local pumpkin patch. I used the savory recipe and real butter. After they had baked, I finished them off with some salt, a little freshly ground pepper, and a dash of chili powder. They were completely fabulous!
I also wanted to make cookies using the mesquite powder. I did not have chocolate chips or duck eggs, but I did have gluten free oats and golden raisins. I went in search of a recipe that called for ingredients that I had on hand. I came across this site, and on it was a recipe for Mesquite Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. These turned out fabulously made with Cup4Cup as a direct substitute for All-Purpose flour and the Mesquite powder adds a hint of chocolatey-ness to the cookies. The cookies were so delicious that I never managed to take a picture of them as a finished product.
For dinner, I made the gnocchi recipe mentioned above. These were also too delicious to bother taking a picture of the finished product... whoops.
In the future, I hope to be more diligent about documenting my food preparation since I have such a nice camera to do the documentations! For now, however, this will have to do. You should know that it has taken me three drafts of blogs and the last two days to finally get something new posted. I hope to be back to my regular schedule from now on.
As a parting gift, here are some more pictures of food.
... and a strange picture of my home that I took while playing with my camera...
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